DARYL HAD VACATED HER ROOM BY THE TIME SHE WENT IN TO COLLECT THE EMPTY PLATE THE NEXT MORNING.
She went to bring him breakfast, just a bit of eggs and toast, only to find empty sheets. Birdy stripped her bed that had spots of dirt and blood splattered around before going to find the hunter.
"Birdy!" Beth stopped her on the porch, "Rick's gonna teach us how ta shoot. You wanna come with?"
She raised her eyebrows, "Your dad gonna let us?"
Guns and protection were a sensitive subject in that household since the world went to shit.
Beth nodded, "Yeah, he wants us to learn."
"Alrigh', sure." Birdy sighed, "Lemme get this to Daryl real quick."
It was kinda hard to find Daryl, considering there were a dozen tents laying around the tree outside the house. But she eventually found him laying in some green tent, poking holes through the mesh with one of his arrows.
Birdy stood outside the open door and cleared her throat, trying to get his attention. He fiddled with the arrow, his eyes moving towards her form, "Wha' do ya want?"
She crouched down, "Brought ya some breakfast."
Daryl moved to sit up, but she stopped him once she was the wince on his face, "Don't." She moved inside the tent and helped him get comfortable again, "Don't wanna tear the stitches." Birdy commented before handing him the plate.
She stared at him for a few moments as he began to scarf down his food. Daryl paused, meeting her gaze, "Wha'?"
"Shouldn't've left the bed so quickly. No one was gonna force ya out." Birdy commented,
"Not gonna stay where 'm not wanted." He grumbled.
Birdy raised an eyebrow, "After all you've done for your group and that girl, I'd say you're allowed a few days of rest in an actual bed."
Someone called out her name and she through the window of the tent to see Beth and Patricia waiting on her. She gave them a nod and moved towards the door, "I'll come back for the plate later."
Daryl grunted and watched her go before continuing his meal.
Birdy hopped into the back of Otis' truck, while Jimmy drove and Patricia and Beth sat up front. They drove a few miles away from the farm, into a random field of a neighbouring property. Rick and Shane had everyone set up a bunch of cans and bottles on the top of a wooden fence, before teaching everyone how to load and safely handle a gun.
Once going over the basics, they had everyone line up and began shooting.
Birdy wasn't amazing at first. Her stance was off, and she was still getting used to the aim, but she would clip the cans and shatter a few bottles.
She knew it would be harder to hit a moving target. Especially a target that was trying to kill you.
After a few hours of shooting, the group left in case they attracted more walkers than they could handle.
Andrea seemed to be a natural. Rick and Shane decided she could use advanced training, and Shane stayed behind to teach her.
Birdy spent the rest of her day doing chores and helping with dinner. She had gone to collect the plate from Daryl's tent, but he was gone. It seemed to be a reoccurring theme with him.
She didn't bother looking for him, knowing he could take care of himself, even if he was injured.
The next day, Birdy was going out on her horse, to help search for the girl, when she spotted the group hanging around the barn.
Her uncle had warned her to stay away, didn't want anyone near it.
But her curiosity began to grow as the group began to argue loudly.
"Go." Maggie told her, "I'll deal with it."
With a reluctant nod, Birdy went out into the woods, following the trail that Rick had marked the day before. It was the trail Daryl was on, the one where he fell and hurt himself.
But it was also the trail where they found evidence of Sophia.
Birdy wasn't a tracker, she didn't know what she was looking for beside a little girl. She tried finding something that looked out of place, but all there was out there was leaves and sticks and trees.
She was out there for hours, but she didn't find anything, at least not to her knowledge. Birdy didn't see anything other than squirrels and birds.
Birdy was just putting Dolly away when she heard a commotion coming from the house. She rushed over, seeing most of the group gathered around, with Shane handing out guns,
"What's going on?" Birdy asked, approaching them,
"Here." Shane held out a gun towards her, "I saw you shoot the other day. Go on."
"I... I don't.." She glanced over at Maggie in confusion,
"Take it." Shane spat, stepping towards her and shoving the gun in her hands.
"Hey, man, back off." Daryl grunted, getting in between him and Birdy, "She don't gotta."
"If she wants to protect her farm, she'll take the gun and help us." Shane told the hunter,
"And she's still confused." Birdy moved around the men, "What's going on?"
Maggie moved towards her and Birdy took a step backwards as Shane stated, "What is that?" They all turned to see Rick and Hershel walking out of the woods, two geeks attached to poles while Jimmy led them, making noises to keep the geeks interested,
"What the fuck?"
Birdy had no idea what was going on. Why were they capturing the geeks? Why were they leading them towards the barn?
Shane took off towards them and everybody followed.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"Shane, just back off." Rick demanded, still trying to keep control of the walker,
"Why do your people have guns?" Hershel asked,
"Are you kidding me?' Shane scoffed, "You see?You see what they're holding onto?"
'I see who I'm holding onto." Birdy's uncle corrected him,
"No, man, you don't."
"Shane, just let us do this and then we can talk." Rick begged,
"What you want to talk about, Rick?" Shane began to circle them like a rabid dog, "These things ain't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gonna feel nothing for them 'cause all they do, they kill!"
Birdy felt a hand grab hers and turned to see Beth. She squeezed her hand and pulled her close in case Shane did something drastic,
"These things right here, they're the things that killed Amy! They killed Otis! They're gonna kill all of us!"
"Shane, shut up!" Rick snapped at him,
But the man didn't listen, "Hey, Hershel man, let me ask you something." He grabbed his gun and Birdy manoeuvred herself to stand in front of Beth, "Could a living breathing person, could they walk away from this?"
He shot the walker Hershel was holding onto multiple times in the torso, "That's three rounds in the chest. Could someone who's alive, could they just take that?!" He shot the walker a few more times, "Why is it still coming? That's its heart, its lungs. Why is it still coming!?
"Shane, enough." Rick insisted,
"Yeah, you're right, man." Shane approached the walker, "That is enough." He aimed for its' head and pulled the trigger.
Birdy watched in horror as Hershel let go of the pole, a disheartened look on his face. Beth gasped and grabbed onto Birdy's shirt, "Why is he doin' this?" Beth sobbed,
Hershel landed on his knees and Birdy fought the urge to go to him. She was still confused about the situation, but seeing her uncle with the walkers, and knowing they were actively keeping something from her, she knew it wasn't good.
What were they hiding?
"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" Shane paced, "Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us!"
Why didn't they tell her? Hershel told her to stay away from the barn, but she never knew the reason why.
And now she did.
Why was Maggie allowed to know? Was Beth in on this?
"Enough. Rick, it ain't like it was before! Now if y'all want to live, if you want to survive, you got to fight for it!" Shane addressed the group, "I'm talking about fighting right here, right now."
He approached the locked barn doors and Rick begged for someone to take the snare pole to stop his friend, "No, Shane. Do not do this, brother. Wait!" Rick begged him,
Maggie got up from her position next to her father and turned to her cousin, "Birdy, go back to the house, please. Take Beth with you."
"What did you do?" She whispered, staring at the tears forming in Maggie's eyes,
"Birdy, please."
Shane opened the doors with a pickaxe, and all guns turned towards the barn.
The first walker to stumble out was one Birdy recognised. Marvin from down at the mechanics.
Andrea, T-Dog, Daryl, and Shane stood in front of the group, placing themselves between the dead and the living, and began to shoot anything that moved out from the barn doors.
Birdy dropped Beth's hand the moment a woman in a familiar pale pink sundress stepped.
Her blonde ringlets, that once shined in the sunlight, was now disheveled and stained with blood.
Her glowing skin was pale, with dirt and hay sticking to her arms and her dress. On her shoulder was a massive bite mark that had turned black.
That wasn't the woman she once knew. That wasn't her mom.
It was some monster.
"Mom?" The words barely escaped Birdy's lips as the monsters from the barn made their way towards them.
Her heart dropped even further as another familiar face appeared, "Dad?" His skin was a pale grey, and his eyes seemed void of life. Blood was dried around his lips, and she couldn't believe her parents' rotting bodies were stuffed into a barn.
She turned to look at her uncle, who couldn't meet her gaze.
He had told her that they were in a better place, but this is it?
In his barn, filled with the dead?
Birdy let out a sob as bullets went into their skulls. Her legs gave out beneath her and rocks cut into her knees.
It all seemed to go quiet, all of the walkers now dead in a pile just outside the doors. Sobs filled the air, coming from the Greene family.
Then, there was one last little growl, coming from the dark depths of the barn. Everyone's heads lifted in time to see a young girl stumble from the building.
"Sophia?" Carol ran past Birdy but was caught by Daryl, "Sophia!" The mother fell to her knees and cried,
Birdy watched as the pale little girl, with the large bite oozing from her neck, staggered towards them.
Rick moved to the front of the group, grabbing his gun from its' holster.
That poor little girl, the worst thing that could have happened to her, did happen. She was out in the woods, alone, and died a slow, painful death. Then stuffed into a barn full of corpses.
She should've died old, and surrounded by loved ones.
Birdy winced at the sound of the gunshot, hearing her small body hit the ground.
"There is no God."